Cora became very sulky. And she mingled unamiability with abuse. The sad truth was, and her husband realized it with intense bitterness in the course of that afternoon, she had begun drinking heavily again in spite of all that he could do to check her. It was a failure of the will. There was no doubt life bored her. The restraints she had recently put upon herself, not in regard to drink alone, had become more than she could bear. For a week past she had known that another "break-out" was imminent.
She was now inclined to make this dinner party to which she was not invited a pretext for it.
"I see what it is," she said with ugly eyes. "Your lawful wife is not good enough for my lord Ambrose and his lady friends."
This stung, it was so exactly the truth.
"But don't think for a moment I am going to take it lying down. If you go to this party I'm coming too."
"You can't," said her husband quietly—so quietly that it made her furious.
"Oh, can't I!"
"No, you can't," he said with a finality that offered no salve. He was angry with his own weakness. He knew that it had caused him to drift into a false position. And yet what could he do—with such a wife as that?
"You're ashamed of me," she said, with baffled rage in her voice.
"You've no right to say that." It was a feeble rejoinder, but silence would have been worse.